


Strange Days

by beetle



Series: Strange Days [1]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Doctor Strange (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Afro-Romanian Karl Mordo, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Attraction, Backstory Tweaks, Banter, Character Development, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, FCFics, Feels, Flirting, Friendship, Humor, M/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Mentor/Protégé, Mutual Pining, Obsession, Opposites Attract, Teacher-Student Relationship, Timeline Shenanigans, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wong is always right, flirtation, resolved emotional tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 02:09:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20649467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: Karl Mordo is terrible at getting what he wants and needs. Stephen Strange is awful at keeping what he has and loves. Similar problems might share a single solution. And this wouldn’t be thefirst timethat hope and faith in fantastically flawed men has changed lives—and even the world—for the better.EDIT, 09.18.2019:Or, per reader and commentor, JOHNNY BOY:translation:stephen: so... i like you.... a lot... we gonna fuck?mordo: i was a huge hoe once and idk babystephen: oh we def gonna fuck





	Strange Days

**Author's Note:**

> AU set during the first half of the 2016 film, with some flashbacks. Mostly MCU canon-compliant, except where it isn’t. Spoilers. Angst. Humor. Wong.

“Kamar-Taj. . . ?”

The American’s low, rich, but forlorn voice trails off despondently as he shuffles the chilly-windy streets and bazaars of Kathmandu . . . and past Karl Mordo, reeking of indigence, anxiety, desperation, and knife’s-edge hope, like so many.

Having noticed and been following the American for some hours, since he first started muttering—mispronouncing—_Kamar-Taj_ to anyone who’d made the mistake of initiating eye-contact, Karl doesn’t need to turn his head to follow the distracted man’s progress.

No, nor even to keep tabs on him, since he’s much taller than most in the streets and bazaars—taller than Karl, himself, even though only by an inch, or two—and his entire head seems to be covered in matted, grown-out brown hair, an overgrown mustache, and a horribly unkempt beard.

Karl doesn’t _need_ to turn his head, but he does anyway, catching another intense whiff of the oblivious man: sweat, salt, and oh-so-faintly of tears.

Under those scents, the American also smells of the call-signs of what must be his temperament: brimstone representing his rage, incense for both sanctity and rue, blood for passion and humanity, rather than violence or illness, and. . . .

_Wind and stars_, representing the reach and scope of his dreams and his ironclad determination to see them manifest.

As he follows along on what the Yank doesn’t know will be a fruitless errand—down staircases, through crowds, and past shops—Karl can practically _feel_ the tingling, ice-fire-lightning thrill of the man’s carefully controlled, but no less potent hopes and dreams. As well as the eternal fires that burn him from inside out, and fuel that fearsome determination.

Of more immediate import, he can _also_ see the lanky Yank striding toward and suddenly into an alley of dangerous repute—as if called to toss his life down the privy, before realizing he’s wandered so near to his destination, if not his ultimate goal.

Almost smiling, though he can’t fathom why, Karl Mordo also turns toward the alleyway, meaning to catch the American’s life before it’s done circling the drain, entirely.

#

“Guys . . . I don’t have any money,” the Yank is saying as Karl moves out of the direct sunlight of the street and into the alley’s suspect shade.

The Yank’s tone is as flat and plain as honesty can make a man—even one such as Karl suspects this one can often be. But the three jackals surrounding him and closing in already know that this man doesn’t have much of anything. Not even a pot to piss in, let alone a window to throw it out of. But even such as that often have one thing . . . just one small, sentimental, possibly valuable item that they’ve managed to hold on to, despite life having brought them to an alley such as this.

This Yank’s _one thing_ becomes obvious a moment after he speaks.

“No, please,” he says in a hoarse, tired, and seemingly broken beyond pleading voice, after the lead jackal demands the expensive-looking watch on his wrist. “It’s all I’ve got left.”

“Your watch,” the leader demands, exactly as he’d said it the first time, conscienceless beyond caring.

The American’s back goes up slightly, defensively and as if he’s attempting to ready himself for a fight.

_Not so broken as all that_, Karl thinks, that mystery of a smile widening and wreathed by the humid, white plume of his breath. As he watches, the Yank assents to the demand and puts down his bag as if to free his hand for removing his watch.

His swing on the lead jackal is telegraphed so far in advance, Karl can only assume the leader takes the hit simply because he recognizes both the swing and the momentum behind it to be relatively negligible.

He and his comrades waste no time watching the Yank moan and clutch his shaking hand. They begin to work him over vigorously with punches, then kicks shortly thereafter, as the man clearly doesn’t know how to fight or even defend himself properly. He doesn’t know how to use his figurative head _or_ his literal hands.

Though already moved and decided to intervene, Karl isn’t invested in this scenario beyond rote notions of right, wrong, and power. At least, he isn’t until the leader goes for the Yank’s watch . . . for a destitute man’s _last bit of who he may have once been_ and perhaps has hopes of being again.

When the lead robber plucks the expensive-looking timepiece off the man’s shaking wrist, that simple bit of cruelty to someone so defenseless, lost, and _alone_ . . . changes nothing, except for _absolutely everything_.

Before the robber can pocket it and before his colleagues even realize that they’ve now gone from robbery to plain assault, Karl’s striding out of the mouth of the alley and into what passes for a fray among vermin such as this. He doesn’t even need a relic or weapon to end it.

#

He is, of course, quick enough to save the disaster of a Yank from suffering more than that initial and thorough drubbing, but apparently not quick enough to save the possession his assailants had wanted so badly.

And the one thing of value the Yank has left.

Honestly, the worse-for-wear man looks as if he’s about to break down and weep when he sees the shattered glass face of the fancy timepiece. His bright, intensely blue eyes actually fill with tears for a few moments as he stares at it. Between mustache and beard, the mobile, but dour line of his barely visible mouth quivers and turns down.

But it firms up almost immediately and the Yank glances up at Karl, who manages his blandest, least intimidating smile.

(According to Wong and even to the Ancient One, that’s hardly saying much. Or, as Wong puts it: “You look like the second to last person I’d ever want to take on in a fight. The last, of course, being the Ancient One—and no knock to you, obviously. But I don’t like my odds, either way, and dead’s dead, once you are.”

“As you say,” is Karl’s response to any iteration of this, along with that same bland-but-not smile and slightly raised eyebrows.

_Wong’s response _to_ that_ is rolled eyes, a sigh, and _sometimes_ . . . muttering.)

Karl glances at the damaged watch, then before the Yank can shed a word or a tear for his misfortunes, he meets the man’s blue-blue gaze again. It’s incredibly direct and unshielded by even typical Yankee irreverence and bravado . . . or that dishearteningly common “sense of humor” they tend to display when flustered or afraid.

“You’re looking for Kamar-Taj.” It’s not a question, but the Yank nods once, blinks, then nods thrice more in rapid succession, as eager but afraid to hope as any needy, unloved child.

Karl does not wince, nor does he reply. He simply steps past the Yank—on one of his felled aggressors—and walks sedately to the mouth of the alley.

He tells himself that despite his unusual investment, it bothers him not whether the hairy, haggard indigent follows, or has lost his Yankee nerve sometime in the last few minutes.

And it _doesn’t_ matter to Karl. Not at all.

He wears the mystery smile all the way through the crowds and bazaars and thoroughfares that lead circuitously to Kamar-Taj. It isn’t as if the tired, dirty Yank trailing him by yards—then by feet, then by the space of a sharp exhalation—can see it to call Karl on it, anyway.

#

After the Ancient One is done tossing the American—a former surgeon with ruined hands, named _Stephen Strange_—to and fro throughout the astral dimension and Multiverse, and having finally tossed him out of Kamar-Taj, Karl surprises himself by speaking on the Yank’s, _Strange’s_, behalf.

Though . . . not really. Not entirely or even ultimately. The fact is, Karl _believes_ the words he speaks to the Ancient One—every last one of them. With Kaecilius having stolen spells from the _Book of Cagliostro_, and he and his Zealots running around loose, determined to see Earth cast into the Dark Dimension and the hands of Dormammu, surely Kamar-Taj and the Sanctums—_the world_ doesn’t need more Masters Hamir or Wong or Mordo. Nor another Daniel Drumm, or even another Ancient One.

It needs something different than it’s heretofore gotten.

At least, that’s Karl’s contention to the Ancient One.

“Stubbornness, arrogance, ambition . . . I’ve seen it all before,” she says, serene and engaged, as always, but with little in the way of give or concession. Karl watches her elegant, precise hands as they move the Earth. As they protect it. He finds her efforts more beautiful and worthwhile than that on which she expends them, and the Ancient One doubtlessly knows this and patiently waits for Karl’s sense of aesthetics to shift.

She’s been waiting since before World War II. And now, most of a century later, the Earth has very recently and barely avoided alien invasions and a _third_ World War—with thanks for their invaluable defense of the world to the Avengers, and _none_ to those who would bind such peerless, dedicated warriors by committee and consensus . . . or see them imprisoned short of that—and Karl has yet to reward her patience and faith in him, though not for lack of trying.

“He reminds you of . . . Kaecilius,” Karl notes with a barely perceptible pause—grateful, as ever, that the Ancient One finds it enough that Karl has come so far, despite the rather monstrous setbacks of his early days as a student, then as a master. She has never and will never be the one to remind Karl of his past when she knows how heavily it sits on his shoulders and how prevalent it looms in his mind and heart.

She will _never_ lump him in with Kaecilius, though it is her kindness that sees her avoid that, not a lack of similar traits, inciting incidents, and comparable mindsets between her two most notable pupils.

Comparable . . . misdeeds.

But though Kaecilius’s relative lack of age and experience—several decades fewer than Karl, though Karl had been affected by Kamar-Taj’s tendency to slow the aging process in his twenties, and thus, even nearing his centenary, his appearance is nebulously thirty-something, to Kaecilius’s well-kept fifties—were certainly factors in his apostacy, they would never be excuses. Nor would his grief-fueled madness.

Karl Mordo, of all sorcerers, could not afford to be less than ruthless and adamant when it comes to not excusing the powerful to behave as monsters, simply because grief and madness has made such a descent easier than the struggle to remain human.

Or the struggle to reach for something higher, still.

“I cannot lead another gifted student to power, only to lose him to the darkness.” As ever, the Ancient One has her eyes on the world. But her deepest consideration is on and of her pupil and friend.

“You did not lose _me_,” he asserts, though it’s really only half-truth. She’d half-lost him when he’d been half-hers. When she’d saved him from himself for a second time—a kindness and generosity . . . a gesture of love and friendship so selfless, her willingness to do so, alone, had been what ultimately redeemed the heretofore remorseless _Baron Mordo_—he’s been fully and only hers ever since. Beyond all hesitation and doubt.

And he will ever remain so, he knows, until the death of the Multiverse.

“I wanted the power to defeat my enemies,” he says, plain, but discreet, for his own sake. “You gave me the power—taught me the way to be strong and defeat _my demons_. _Every man’s_ fiercest foes.” Karl holds her gaze with his admiring, utterly loyal one. “You taught me the importance of and how to live within the Natural Law.”

The Ancient One’s smile is fond, but a little sad. It often is. “But we never _completely_ defeat our demons, Karl. We only learn to live above them,” she says, quiet and kind, and not for the first time. Karl returns her smile. He, of all people, knows that every man’s attic is full of ghosts and his cellar is full of demons.

_Karl’s own_ are _especially_ full—and especially of that latter.

And since he’d spent his early life in feudal-era castles in Eastern Europe, he knows _his idea_ of a cellar would hold far more demons than those of most men.

“Kaecilius still has the stolen pages. If he deciphers them, he could bring ruin upon us all.” Karl approaches the Ancient One slowly and humbly, holding that weary, ages-deep, sea-blue gaze. “There could be dark days ahead. Perhaps Kamar-Taj could use a man like Strange.”

The Ancient One actually seems torn. Exasperated and worried . . . and torn.

But, less than five minutes later, just as the Ancient One had tossed Stephen Strange out herself, bodily, and with rather unseemly glee, so Karl is the one to . . . _usher_ the man back in.

“Thank you,” Strange croaks with raw humility and gratitude, after he tumbles backwards through the doors against which he’d been leaning. The doors that Karl has just opened.

The doors to Kamar-Taj and Strange’s second and last chance.

Karl shuts those doors, once more, and stares down at the man. He’s gasping in air as if it’s any different within Kamar-Taj than it is without. Shaking his head, Karl half-smiles, and offers Strange his hand. It’s a minute before the man opens his striking eyes, grins, and takes it with his own shaking, scarred, icy one.

He doesn’t wait to be pulled up but instead pulls himself up.

He doesn’t smell particularly delightful, but under the expected scents that attend a homeless, wandering vagrant, is that scent like purity. Like incense and . . . growing things. Apples, perhaps. . . .

Now, he seems to be sans the bitter bleakness of brimstone and the vital-alarming scent of blood, despite the events of the seven hours since he’d been assaulted, robbed, and nearly murdered.

And that grin is . . . brighter than the sunniest day Karl has ever seen, even with acres of unkempt, silver-threaded mustache and beard partially obscuring it.

_That grin and this moment_ mark the first time Karl goes against protocol where Stephen Strange is concerned. Despite the man’s lack of tenure—barely even a minute as part of the Kamar-Taj community, and as yet trusted by no one—Karl makes a mental note to give Strange Kamar-Taj’s wi-fi password.

He has no doubt Strange will give him some reason to regret doing so. Possibly many reasons. But as the only return he can offer Strange on that beguiling grin—the only return that would be of value to such a worldly, jaded man—Karl _is_ obliged to make that offer.

He also feels the need to assure Strange that even in its simplicity, Kamar-Taj is _not_ full of Luddites and savages.

#

By Strange’s sixth Tuesday in Kamar-Taj, Karl has compiled quite the disorganized, armchair psychological profile on the man.

For one thing, Strange is a near-perfect pupil, eager and thirsty for knowledge and keen on theory, not just application.

He arrives promptly for learning sessions and is not chatty with his peers during work-time. He’s affable but focused during group projects and exercises, and though he maintains a certain reserve—one mirrored back at him by those peers, who clearly don’t know what to make of him . . . even the Yanks in the group—he’s quite charming and friendly to one and all. And deferential to the masters.

Though Kamar-Taj remains wary of him and even whispers about him, masters and students alike, it’s obvious that Strange is generally respected and liked, and his work-ethic and ability to make intellectual leaps and bridges is admired and even envied.

Karl, by far, sees him the most, whether in sessions or simply in passing—rather, his colleagues seem to think he does, for the way they approach him with questions about Strange for which they expect detailed answers. The questions range from how Strange does in his sessions with Karl and the other masters, to what Strange’s personal philosophies might be, to whether inviting him to dine with the masters, now and again, would be inappropriate.

_By that sixth Tuesday that Strange is in-residence_—after weeks of having his ear bent about the man from the other masters at Kamar-Taj—Karl’s eyes practically have whiplash from all their rolling. Itself not surprising. The _surprising thing_ is that Stephen Strange is only indirectly responsible for said almost-whiplash.

“Really, it’s as if our colleagues are reduced to novices—no, teenagers, when it comes to Strange,” Karl tells Wong over a late supper in the library. He’d brought Wong that late meal, as frequently happens, and saved his own so that the man wouldn’t eat alone, as he often does. “The vaunted Masters of Kamar-Taj cannot help but keep Stephen Strange’s name in their mouths.”

Karl, scowling down at his mostly full bowl, doesn’t see the face Wong makes—nor would he, because the man’s expression barely shifts _ever_, even during battle—but he can sense it and the ironic exasperation behind it. “Indeed,” Kamar-Taj’s librarian agrees dryly, and half the blood in Karl’s body rushes to his face.

“Don’t think your sarcastic implication escapes me, old friend,” he manages, sedate but stiff and _certainly_ not risking a glance up _now_. “Were the other masters not so taken by and chatty over the man, I’d have no cause to mention him at all, other than to bemoan his inability to summon even a speck of mystical energy for his studies.”

Karl can _definitely_ hear Wong _blink_, even though the man probably hasn’t recently. “Is that so, Master Mordo?”

“_Very_ _much_ so, Master Wong.” Karl digs into his barely touched rice. He’s spent most of the meal complaining about Stephen Strange casting a spell over Kamar-Taj, so to speak. Now, his meal isn’t even warm, anymore.

And the . . . _Strange Situation_, as it were, is maddening. In a low-key, partly amusing—bemusing—way. Or, it had been. Now, Wong, as seems to be his hobby, has decided to lump _Karl_ in with those very same masters who are occasioning Karl’s grumbling. Which is more maddening, _still_.

“I am not grumbling,” Karl grits around half a mouthful, accidentally spitting a few grains of rice onto the table. Wong notices, of course, and chuckles.

“No, you’re spitting half-chewed rice on my table. I thought you were delivering the news, Mordo, not the weather.”

Karl glares at Wong, who actually cracks a smirk, crooked and smug . . . and almost Jack-O’-Lantern-esque in the low, but stark light of the library-after-hours.

“Really, the only one I hear talking about Strange excessively is _you_. To the exclusion of all else.” Wong sniffs and sips his unsweetened tea. Karl manages not to make a face, but he can only stand that tea with half-again its weight in honey added.

“Hyperbole doesn’t suit you,” he loftily decides.

“Nor willful blindness, you, yet here we are,” Wong replies mildly, spreading his hands a little. His bowl of rice and vegetables—both he and Karl are lifelong vegetarians and had discovered this common ground early—is empty of both and even all traces of moisture.

Karl’s bowl, however, looks as if he’s just sat down to it.

“To what do you suggest I’m blind?” he asks politely, through once again gritted teeth. Wong sighs and shakes his head.

“The first time I met Strange, he was returning some books he’d finished reading. _The Codex Imperium, The Key of Solomon, Book of the Invisible Sun, _and_ Astronomia Nova._” Karl’s brows lift and Wong nods once. “I was surprised. And impressed, I’ll admit to you. But that’s the entirety of the discussion such a fact warrants, for me. _You_, however, will no doubt find in that _hours_ of material for brooding over and discussing. And though I’m certain the other masters mention Strange rather more than they mention most students, he’s just something of a five days-wonder to them—a break from the monotony. He arrived with a splash, thanks in large part to _you_. Got literally tossed out by the Ancient One . . . only to be let back in with even greater fanfare because _you_, the reclusive and reserved _Master Mordo_, spoke for him and used your . . . hmm, _special pull_ to get the Ancient One to change her mind about teaching him—”

“My _special pull_?” Karl demands and Wong huffs.

“Yes. And I don’t mean that dumb grappling-hook relic Drumm used to eye before he became a master. You and I and everyone here, probably even a newbie like Strange, knows that the Ancient One may not play favorites but she certainly _has them_. And by _them,_ I mean _you_. _You_ are that list. She accords _you_ her ear and consideration on certain matters as if you were one of the Three.”

Now, Karl huffs. “Blasphemy—_heresy_, actually,” he revises with quelling pointedness.

“_Both_, if you want to be thorough,” Wong agrees rather cheerfully, giving the impression of a cat with canary feathers around its mouth. “Strange is only here because the Ancient One has greater faith in _you_ and your judgment, at least in this matter, than she does even in her own. And _you_ have faith in _Strange_—even after the mess with Kaecilius, _you_ have faith that a man so similar can be not only different, but _better_. And _your_ belief in him may make or break this world, Mordo,” Wong says heavily, his tangible mirth quickly fading. “But the point is, the world will never break _your faith_ in _him_. Not in Strange and not in anything into which you invest such a precious commodity as _your faith_.”

“Pah. Faith and belief are as common as dirt on the ground. As common as ignorance and irrationality in humanity. And, some would say, the parents of it,” Karl notes grimly. But he also silently acknowledges that Wong’s a better student of humanity and the human condition than anyone Karl has met, save the Ancient One.

“That’s . . . not inaccurate,” Wong allows, if with some discomfort. “But _your_ faith and belief aren’t born of ignorance. They flourish despite knowledge. And that makes them precious. _You know_ what the Stephen Stranges of the world are capable of. You’ve seen it firsthand, old man.” The canary feathers-air is back with a small smile that invites Karl to come along. Karl declines the invitation but finds himself relaxing out of his defensiveness. Wong may tease him—and everyone—but few care more about individuals simply for their own sake than Kamar-Taj’s librarian. That he hides it so well, most of the time, is purely a survival-mechanism, and certainly one that predates the man’s tenure at Kamar-Taj. “When faith and belief are misplaced, the result can be . . . tragic. Sometimes, even catastrophic. But after everything . . . _you_, Karl Mordo, don’t develop this rare measure of faith and belief, and then it turns out to be misplaced. In fact, the _only_ person I’ve known you to show such unbreakable faith in besides _Stephen Strange_ . . . is the Ancient One.”

“Comparison between those two is folly, impinging on idiocy.”

“I mean no comparison, Mordo, but a _contrast_. I know a little of how you came to Kamar-Taj, and your early years as the Ancient One’s pupil,” Wong admits, quiet and compassionate . . . but not enough to make Karl prickle. Even Kamar-Taj has its own version of a rumor-mill. Compared to most students’ stories, Karl’s was and is unusual enough to have survived time and turn-over.

Not that even Karl’s long-gone contemporaries had ever known even the half of Karl’s story.

If they _had_ . . . they’d have demanded the Ancient One banish him, and rightly so. They’d have never felt comfortable or even safe around him as a fellow student, a fellow sorcerer, a fellow master.

And they would _never_ have given themselves into the keeping of a Sorcerer Supreme who’d found such a person as Karl worthy of Kamar-Taj, and the legacy of Agamotto the Ageless.

Karl has long understood this and even now, waits only for the truth of himself to out to Kamar-Taj and the world, that he may begin paying the bill that will have come due for _Baron Mordo_. For the man he once was and, in so many ways, still has to fight not to be.

“Your faith, belief, admiration, and love—your loyalty to the Ancient One, and not just to her office, is obvious and makes complete, rational sense, even knowing so little of your story. But knowing far more of Strange’s and Kaecilius’s, your faith, belief, admiration, and . . . affection for _Strange_ make absolutely no obvious or rational sense.” Wong spreads his hands again, then sighs, looking a bit dyspeptic. “Unless, of course . . . one was to view Strange from a . . . somewhat less conventional and expected angle, given his context.”

Karl squints at Wong a little, suddenly cold—and hot, and cold, and ‘round and ‘round—as the librarian holds his gaze easily. One of the few besides the Ancient One, who can. “And what angle and context would _those_ be, old friend?”

“Oh, none, in particular, I suppose. . . .” Wong trails off irritably, then waves his hand at Karl’s forgotten dinner. “If you’re not going to finish that before midnight, you’ll have to finish it elsewhere.”

Still squinting—and frowning, too, Karl methodically begins putting away rice and vegetables, even though he can’t taste them, and the consistency is unpleasant with them having gone slimy and gelid.

It’s only when Karl has finished and is collecting their dishes and napkins on the tray that Wong, having watched him do this with silent ponderousness, speaks again.

“By the way, Mordo, what color would you say Strange’s eyes are?”

Karl answers honestly, despite his puzzlement and surprise at Wong’s unusual lack of detail orientation on the matter. Normally, the man could probably differentiate between several flies simply by the striations of green shading their wings. “I’d say they’re the exact shade of the heart of a sacred flame, near the pupil. But more of a . . . rain-washed cerulean nearer the edge of the irises—cooler in shade, but still vivid in hue. Why?”

Wong’s smirk is slow and obnoxious, but somehow commiserating as Karl realizes he’s stepped into some sort of trap or _I told you so_.

“See?” the librarian says, crossing his arms and letting his eyebrows lift pointedly, “I’d have simply said _blue_. But then, I suppose I just don’t see Stephen Strange from _that_ _particular_ _angle_.”

#

Soon, during sessions and practical projects, Karl finds himself spending with Strange _three times_ the span he spends with other students, since Strange still can’t conjure or corral the mystical energy that abounds from the Earth and Multiverse around them.

Despite Karl’s patient, personalized tutelage, the man’s shaking, scarred hands seem incapable of taking the basic fabric of realities and making it manifest in any way.

Even the slowest student in Strange’s peer-group have gotten a little of the facility they’ll eventually have as sorcerers and masters in their own right. For weeks, even the next most struggling students have been moving the forces and energy, and matter underpinning and moving through all of existence—have been manifesting sparks of mystical and magical power. Most are even able to open brief, rudimentary gateways to places with which they have familiarity.

Not Strange.

Strange can’t summon a single spark—not even the ghost of a mystic iota. Though certainly not for lack of trying, Karl knows. The former surgeon has been a fixture at Kamar-Taj for _nearly three months _and doing little else _but trying_.

And it’s at the peak of this plateau of progress—near the beginning of the final session of a chilly Wednesday, in Strange’s eleventh week at Kamar-Taj—when Karl, wandering among the rows and aisles of students practicing their improving gateways, begins to think he might just owe Wong an apology for certain . . . post-supper words they’d had, weeks back.

“Mastery of the sling-ring is essential to the mystic arts,” Karl is saying as he walks around the outdoor session space and between his students. His voice is clear and carrying, and really meant for Stephen Strange’s edification, as most of the other students have clearly grasped these concepts. “They allow us to travel through the Multiverse. All you need to do is focus. Visualize. _See_ the destination in your minds.” Karl moves carefully among purposefully waving arms, weaving a wide path around Strange, whose face is fierce in its determination and focus . . . and bereft at the continuing failure. Karl’s throat tightens and his heart feels as if it’s knocking against his ribcage for a few moments. “_Look beyond the world in front of you_. Imagine every detail. The clearer the picture, the quicker and easier the gateway will come.”

Though Karl has only barely managed to not end his every instruction with the name “Stephen,” this time, he _has_ paused between rows of students and right behind Stephen Strange—not for the first time—in the middle of a lesson.

He’s the only student in a sea of the same, who’s wearing a sling-ring, making all the right gestures, and yet utterly sans even the beginnings of a mystical gateway.

Before Karl can think of a relevant and supportive fact to notice, and on which to compliment the struggling student—as the Ancient One has been known to say, a little honey can make even the bitterest tisane sweeter to swallow—Strange’s bony shoulders sag for a few moments, then straighten and square with the man’s familiar and singular determination.

“I’m . . . _trying_,” he insists, taking a deep breath in again and letting it out as a frustrated sigh. “I really am. I . . . I don’t know why I can’t . . . why even simple feats are still beyond me!”

Though, even as he says it, he raises his trembling, scar-crossed hands and gives them a disgusted shake, as if to rid himself of them.

For a few seconds, Strange’s frustration and self-disgust is as plain as the late-spring sky above them . . . and just as large and inescapable. His long, nimble . . . formerly precise hands and fingers—still strangely beautiful and graceful, even in their utter ruin—move _again_ to stir mystical energy and call it to him, yet none seems to pay heed. None comes to his continued calls. . . .

“Not a single spark,” Karl murmurs pensively, and Strange stiffens and freezes as if struck by lightning. His hands still and he slowly turns his head. Only enough to meet Karl’s eyes with his flames-and-cerulean one. As usual, lately, Karl averts his gaze . . . but this time, his gaze goes drifting right back. Strange doesn’t look irreverent, or arrogant, or even mischievous. His face is still as solemn and fierce as it is when he attempts—and fails—to conjure mystical energy. And Karl suddenly notices that Strange’s scent, incense and apples and now books, has surrounded him and half-fogged his brain.

“Ah, no, Master Mordo,” Strange exhales, husky and rough, his gaze darting down to Karl’s mouth for a few seconds. His scowl lightens to something wry and sly that’s not quite a smile and he meets Karl’s wide, gobstruck stare again. It’s in this moment that Karl realizes just how close he is to Strange, physically speaking. Their tendency is to stand firmly within each other’s spaces even when proximity isn’t necessary, and right now, Karl has drifted close enough that he can see flecks of silvery-gray in Strange’s irises and, mixed with Strange’s scent, smell the tea he’d had with lunch on his breath. And he can feel the faint, warm ghost of that breath on his own lips, strong and warm enough to taste if he parted his lips. “I don’t think a _lack of sparks_ is what’s holding us back, here. I’m, um, definitely sensing _plenty_ of sparks.”

And Karl doesn’t even have the wherewithal to blink. To clear his throat. To respond verbally. To move away. To. . . .

. . . to _anything_ that would shatter this intense, enclosed, completely inappropriate moment between himself and his pupil.

“God, how’d it take me _so long_ to notice there are _sparks_?” Strange mutters absently, and mostly to himself. His eyes tick to Karl’s lips again and he licks his own like a very, very thirsty man.

Which is rather at odds with lips that always seem to look so soft and—

“And, stop.” Karl projects his voice to the session-in-general and turns his gaze from Stephen Strange’s flame-flickering eyes, sharp-planed face, and bony, tense shoulders, and smiles placidly. His voice sounds firm and normal to his own ears, as he puts a more appropriate amount of space between himself and Strange. But he’d only barely noticed the motion at the door leading from the small, outdoor workspace in time.

Meanwhile, in a nearly perfectly timed blink, all the proto-gateways wink out and all the students bow to the Ancient One and Master Hamir as they descend the shallow, entryway steps.

Master Hamir’s gaze is, as usual, everywhere and nowhere in particular. The Ancient One’s attention is on Strange, who’s taken his time looking away from Karl and following everyone else’s gaze. And even when he belatedly bows to the master and the Sorcerer Supreme, Karl can feel a strange thrum of connection and energy between Strange and himself.

“I would like a moment alone with Mr. Strange,” the Ancient One says in a conversational tone that nonetheless carries. Karl bows his head in deference.

“Of course.” With another bow, Karl, and the students make their quiet exit without pause.

Once the rest of the class is sorted and sent on their way with revision work, so to speak, a very curious Karl—curiosity is one of his many besetting sins more for its timing than its intensity—makes his way back outside.

Karl can hear the long-familiar, gentle thwap of her old, wooden fan hitting her palm even before he spots it and her. The Ancient One is standing alone in the workspace, arms folded behind her back. Karl glances around, frowning, but keeps his tone genial and unruffled. “How’s our new recruit?”

“We shall see,” the Ancient One says with absent anticipation. Then adds, with only a _tiny_ bit of chagrin. “Any second, now.”

Karl’s brows furrow as he starts to ask for clarification, then shoot up as he suddenly doesn’t need it. “Oh, no. Not again,” he says with a long-suffering sigh, raising his left hand and sling-ring. He absolutely hates Everest—nothing up there, most days, but wind, snow, climber-excrement, and climbers, themselves . . . living and dead. And Karl always winds up with the sniffles for a week afterwards. But . . . it’ll be worse still for Stephen . . . for _Strange_ if left up there to suffer worse damage to his poor, broken, _beautiful_ hands. Especially if he loses extremities and _not_ his life, soon after. And the thought of Strange having more horror and loss heaped on his bony-strong-indomitable shoulders is almost nauseating enough to make Karl stagger. “Maybe I should—”

The Ancient One stays his hand and, so help him, that’s nearly not enough to keep him still and patient. Nearly not enough to keep him faithful: to her teachings, Strange’s willpower, and _both_ their determination that this downtrodden man on his last chance _will persevere_.

Karl and the Ancient One stand there, stoic and very much concerned . . . though, the Ancient One’s concern is, as always, leavened by a fierce and iron-rigid will that Karl more than half-suspects could be enough to kickstart Strange’s ability to grasp and use the gateway-concept, even if imminent death isn’t.

And perhaps it is, because a bit later than Karl had hoped but not nearly _too late_, the rudiments of a wobbly, unevenly circular gate appear.

When Strange tumbles through it, barely conscious and covered in frost, his skin for once more blanched than the flames-and-cerulean of his blue-blue eyes, Karl manages to throttle down the tsunami-sized instinct to rush forward and catch the man before the stones at his feet do.

He manages to contain it but can’t contain his full-smile or the way his ridiculous _heart_ beats faster and harder.

Strange braces himself as if about to get up, but only manages to look up at Karl then the Ancient One. Then back at Karl, his Everest sky-pale gaze piercing and lingering. Karl doesn’t look away, though he’ll feel sure he ought to have, later.

But for now, he can only grin like a child on his birthday. Whether Strange swooning from exhaustion and exposure at _that moment_ is an indictment of Karl’s grin remains up for debate for a while longer, yet.

#

Karl helps Strange to his room, and into bed. Then, he badgers the man to take some hot tea and warm bread—with many spoonsful of honey, the way Karl’s always taken both—after helping Strange remove his outer layers. He keeps his assistance matter of fact, his touch sparing as he casts spells of safely slow-building warmth into Strange’s body with a few simple gestures.

Never mind that instinct gnaws at him to instead run his hands, which feel oddly hot in proximity to Strange’s icy skin, all over the man as a more dynamic approach. And only for starters.

And certainly, never mind that Strange’s holy-earthy-heady scent still bewitches Karl’s mind and body, coiling around both like a patient boa constrictor: steadily squeezing Karl’s rational thought out while trapping every instinct for impropriety in.

But Karl tempers his instinct and his mind like the old habit that is, and ignores exposed flesh and bony angles, the beginnings of sturdy musculature and the surprisingly appealing, unmarred fairness of Strange’s still-blanched skin.

When Strange is done with his bread and tea, and is tucked into his bed—teeth chattering and still shivering all over, but mostly asleep—Karl collects the tray, the empty plate and cup, and turns away. “Rest well, Strange.”

“Ha. M’own damn shivers’ll wake me up inna couple minutes. Hardly restful.” Strange’s teeth are still chattering and Karl turns back, eyebrows lifting a little.

“If you like, I can bring you a few more blankets, as well as hot water bottles,” he offers, surprised not by his own solicitousness, but by the depth of its sincerity and desire to be of aid.

Strange’s eyes are barely squinted open yet twinkling like a sky full of stars. His smirk is really a crooked, idiot grin.

“Or,” he rumbles, his low voice as slow and rich as honey off a chilled spoon, and never mind the chattering, “_you_ could help warm me up the, uh, _even older_-fashioned way. . . .”

Karl doubts his own understanding of Strange’s implication until the man weakly waggles his eyebrows, like a vaudevillian comic woefully far from his zone of comfort and relevance.

The sigh that comes gusting out of Karl could power a small Nepalese town for at least six months. “Are you, perhaps, running a fever, Mr. Strange? Or did you sustain a head injury while on Everest? I’ve frequently had doubts about your lucidity—this wouldn’t even be the first time today.”

Those squinted-open eyes open wider and Strange seems a little more awake, now. “Hey, I’m just a half-frozen sorcerer, tryin’a thaw, Mordo. Fastest, steadiest, _safest_ way to make that happen is by sharing body-heat—don’t have to be a doctor to know _that_.” _Now_, the smirk is a _smirk_. “It doesn’t have to be or mean anything beyond you, uh, helpin’ a brother out.”

Karl rolls his eyes. “We are not related by blood or affection, Strange.”

“Ah, c’mon, Karl. _Karl-ster_. _The Karl-inator_. _El Karl-erino Grande_. You’re like my person from another person—saved my life, and everything.” Strange’s tone and face slowly trade their irreverent mirth for solemnity. “At this point, you’re the only person I’d trust enough to be helpless and fall asleep next to. And considering that you throw off heat like a large bonfire or a small sun, I have no doubt I’ll be out like a light in minutes. So, even if I _wanted_ to do more than . . . share some warmth, I’d be asleep way before anything could . . . happen.”

Karl’s brows inch slowly upward, his incredulity and apprehension massive enough to make processing a half-Herculean feat. “But . . . you _do_ want . . . _something_ to happen.” He feels as if he shouldn’t be surprised but can’t help the way Strange always throws him for a loop at random moments—blindsides him, much the way an unexpected flash flood blindsides a small, desert-adjacent village.

And surely, no moment could be more ridiculously random and unexpected than this one.

Strange yawns, and though it leaves him blinking owlishly, he’s still grinning. “Not tonight, no. Regrettably, I’ve still got Everest-dick. And, ah, Everest-_everything else_. But, tomorrow’s another day, right?”

“Another day on which you will be my student and I will be your master, yes.”

“I _definitely_ can and have gotten behind calling you _master_. Well. I could also _get behind you_ and _then_ call you master, too.” Those pale-piercing eyes seem to flicker and flare, tired but heated. “Subtle difference, there, but an important one that I’m, ah, sure you would come to appreciate.”

Karl turns away as he feels a hot blush stain his cheeks. It’s intense, and his complexion, though darker, even, than his mother’s had been, is unfortunately far too fair to hide his mortification.

“Personal charm doesn’t make what you’re saying any less insubordinate and unwise, St. . .range.”

“And calling out my unwise insubordination doesn’t make _your_ lack of disgust and censure any _less_ obvious or notable. Doesn’t dull my interest one-damned-bit, either,” he adds in that low, shiver-inducing rumble. Karl takes a few steps closer to the door, eyes on the floor.

“I will stop by in a few hours to check on you—see if you’ve succumbed to delayed frostbite or some other cold-related malady.”

“Or . . . you could stay and _make sure_ I don’t.”

Karl’s step doesn’t waver. It does _not_. It is only that he course-corrects very slightly before setting his foot on the floor again.

“I . . . would really like it if you stayed, Karl. For just a little while. Just ‘til I fall asleep. Stay?”

Now, he definitely pauses, though, with his other foot unraised and all of him frozen as if he’d been the one who spent several harrowing minutes on Everest. Only . . . Karl isn’t certain he can magic his way out of this . . . whatever _this_ is.

He isn’t even certain he wants to. Not when that mysterious half-smile has taken his face once more.

Refraining from glancing back at Strange in this moment isn’t the most difficult battle he’s ever won, but it’s not remotely the easiest, either. “Good evening, Mr. Strange.” When Karl starts moving again, toward the door to Strange’s room, Strange hums, throaty and somehow sultry, despite the events of the past hour.

“Until tomorrow . . . _Master Mordo_.”

The sudden shiver that takes him, prolonged and marked, is nothing he can adequately repress. But at least when he gives up resisting, and glances around to see if Strange is laughing at him, the man’s unconscious. Breathing deeply and evenly through his slack, _still infernally attractive_ mouth.

Still half-smiling, Karl ducks quietly out of the dim room, pulling the door shut behind him. “Sweet dreams, Stephen.”

#

The next morning, Stephen shows up for sessions well-groomed: minus ten feet—or possibly ten pounds—of hair, and . . . even more distractingly attractive.

Though he descends the stairs to the outside workspace hailing peers with calls and waves, his gaze—once it lands on Karl—doesn’t shift even a little. And his smile is crooked, confident, and clever. _Hungry_, too.

Karl can only stare for several thousand-year-long moments, as the world around him, around _them_, seems to go dim and dull with Stephen’s increasing proximity, while the man, himself, seems to emanate light and presence.

Who would have guessed that under the hair and beard—and aside from those blue-within-blue eyes and that wicked mouth . . . the stubborn _strength and unbowed determination_ in those bony shoulders—that Stephen Strange is . . . _beautiful_?

Well. _Karl_ might have. He might have.

_Should have_, he decides when Stephen is within easy touching distance and his bright-blue gaze dances over Karl like teasing touches and lingers like carnal caresses. _I definitely should have foreseen this. Wong was right—of course, he was. There are none so blind . . . none so blind as _I_._

Deficient foresight aside, when Stephen smirks with shiver-causing, knowing irony, Karl is instantly flustered and turns away. _Walks_ away and calls the session to order far from his usual spot, where Stephen still stands, his tangible gaze both hot and heavy.

Karl doesn’t so much as glance at Stephen . . . at _Strange_ . . . during the entire session or during their next several sessions and days. But he can feel Strange’s eyes on him almost constantly. Curious and questioning.

_Heated and heavy_ . . . hungry, and _thirsty_.

Karl spends far too much time swallowing around a ticking-dry throat that no amount of tea and honey can ease. And for once, he does his best to avoid giving a student enlightenment or edification of any kind.

#

After that few days of near-constant discombobulation, Karl finds himself able, once again, to briefly meet Strange’s eyes. He doesn’t gaze distractedly into them—thankfully—but he fears that darting his glances away almost immediately is just as telling. As if he’s intimidated or . . . hiding something.

He supposes Wong would contend that he’s both.

At first, Karl can sense—and see, at least from the corners of his darting eyes—that Strange is bemused by this and trying to figure out what Karl’s reactions must mean. But after a few days of it, he simply seems pleased and playful. Then, flat-out mischievous.

Karl receives a break from Strange’s amusement and . . . persistence, however, as the man progresses in his studies at a rather alarming rate. Now that he’s managed the knack of tapping into mystical energy—and summoning it with speed and facility that are also alarming—he moves up through the ranks and robes far faster than any of his peers. Karl wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a ranked master by the end of Nepal’s slow-sneaking summer.

But by six months of Stephen Strange’s tenure in Kamar-Taj, the fledgling sorcerer’s learned to manage his time well enough to be an obnoxious prodigy while still taking up far too much time in Karl’s psyche. And his teaching sessions. And tutoring sessions.

Karl more than half-suspects Strange recognizes the fluster he causes, and revels both in the result and occasions to cause it.

_By six months of Stephen Strange’s tenure in Kamar-Taj, Karl_ is rather disheartened and depressed by Strange’s mostly silent, mock-flirtation. It feels more like pointed cruelty than opportunistic teasing—though Karl would never admit to that—fueled, as it is, by nothing more than Strange’s contrarian, trouble-making, _iconoclastic_ nature.

Things come to a head—are brought there, rather, by Strange—during a sparring session.

From the beginning, Strange had taken to martial instruction poorly. It had been clear that he’d never received _any_ martial training before becoming a sorcerer.

(Karl, on the other hand, had been raised to use or become whatever kind of weapon his grandfather could foresee needing. Unfortunately for the viscount, he hadn’t been able to foresee _Karl_ becoming the weapon that would turn in his hand.)

Strange, _unlike Karl_, hadn’t spent the first two decades of his life being intensively trained in martial, mystical, and magical arts, and various combinations of all three. And though Strange now excels at mystical and magical arts to the point that Karl would never fail to take him seriously in a real fight with _those two _weapons, Strange’s _purely martial_ acumen and coordination—strategy and application—are quite appallingly nonexistent.

But, regardless of the _kind_ of fight, Strange always seems to land on his feet when dumped, all unexpected, into an unfair one. Easing him along is evidently holding him back. So, for this sparring session, Karl means to pressure the practical application of any martial instinct out of Strange. He not only brings the Staff of the Living Tribunal to do so, but the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr.

Karl . . . means business.

#

“So . . . just how _ancient_ is she?” Strange asks, only half-joking. After six months, he’s become easier to read under that Yankee irreverence and bravado. Or, perhaps, Karl has simply become shallower and more deluded.

He and Strange are outside, in the usual practice-space. And though the day is overcast, the weather is gorgeous for a Kathmandu September. The breeze swirling around the space is especially refreshing and crisp, bringing the suggestion of autumn’s bite from the mountains around them.

Looking up from fastening the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr, Karl glances back toward the wide-open entrance and stairs leading back inside—at the Ancient One, who’s standing on the bottom step, watching two students spar energetically with practice staves. Half-smiling, he finishes with the left Boot, stands, and strides obliquely toward Strange, whose unsettling-curious-heated gaze never leaves him. “No one knows the age of the Sorcerer Supreme. Only that she is Celtic and never talks about her past.”

Strange, as ever, shifts easily to orient his body toward Karl, his gaze for once gone more tangible for its curiosity and incredulity, than for its prurient and inappropriate interest. “You follow her, even though you don’t know?”

“I know she’s steadfast, but unpredictable. Merciless, yet kind. She made me what I am.” Karl drops into a defensive ready-stance, hands up and shoulders loose. Strange instantly mirrors him, if stiffly and by rote, not by an instinct for self-preservation. This, like all the others, looks to be a long and wearying session. But Karl means to tough it out and see results, if only for Strange’s sake. “Trust your teacher. And don’t lose your way.”

“Don’t lose my way?” They begin circling each other warily, though Strange’s wariness is obviously rote, too, and most of his focus is on their conversation. “You mean like Kaecilius?”

Karl’s half-smile fades into his far more familiar frown, all of him tensing up at mention of the Zealot. “That’s right.” And perhaps Strange has some martial or self-preservation instinct, after all, or is simply put on alert by Karl’s tone. He shifts his own formal stance into something looser and less restricting of any future sudden movements.

Which serves him well, when Karl goes on the offensive with a high-sharp roundhouse kick that’s more about sounding-out than challenging Strange, just yet. Strange dodges it, surprisingly, and responds with a waist-level shove that pushes Karl into stumbling backwards, but only for a few moments. Karl turns Strange’s momentum to his advantage and gets him in a hold at shoulder and arm, respectively, that Strange mirrors back on him, resulting in a brief stalemate that only lasts because of Karl’s further surprise, then . . . longer, still, because Strange’s face is so unusually close to his own.

Kissing-close, though clearly that’s not either of their objectives. . . .

“You knew him? Kaecilius?” Strange demands, those cerulean eyes burning into Karl’s like the very flames they resemble. He couldn’t look away even if he wanted to.

Thankfully, Karl’s body is well-trained to ignore his mind’s distractions. He turns the tables on Strange and gets the man in a headlock, then a sleeper-hold that he can’t quite get free of, despite deploying unusually coordinated measures to free himself. Though, even after those efforts have been reduced to Strange randomly trying to jack-knife his body while prying with his near-useless hands at Karl’s unmoving arms, Karl still actually has to work to hold Strange in place and relatively still. At least at first.

“When Kaecilius first came to us, he’d lost everyone he’d ever loved. He was a grieving, broken man searching for answers in the mystic arts,” Karl grits, rough and somewhat winded, but still pointedly. Because suddenly, this lesson has little to do with teasing out whatever martial instinct Strange may possess. And Strange apparently agrees, as he’s stopped struggling so as not to miss a word that’s said, his head tilted so that Karl’s speaking to a faceful of soft, incense-and-apple-scented curls and Strange’s ear. “A brilliant student, yes, but he was _proud_. _Headstrong_.” The strongly implied _just like you,_ doesn’t even warrant adding, as Strange is no dunce. Plus, Karl can feel from the sudden stiffness of Strange’s body that his meaning and gist have been taken. He can also feel Strange’s shiver as his lips brush the man’s chilled ear. “He questioned the Ancient One—rejected her teaching.”

Strange had sagged and almost relaxed in Karl’s caging grip—against Karl’s braced body . . . which said body had noticed and reacted to, even if Karl’s mind hadn’t quite—but he rallies now, lynx-quick, and his elbow-jab not only drives Karl back but forces him to double over around his smarting ribs. When he can straighten to standing, Strange is pacing a tight half-circle around him and caressing the spot on his throat where Karl had restrained him.

Ponderously and almost as if savoring it.

Panting and scowling, Karl tries to control his breathing even as he adds: “Kaecilius left Kamar-Taj. His disciples followed him like sheep . . . seduced by false doctrines.”

He and Strange circle each other again, loose-limbed, but prowling and tense. This is no longer about lessons and formalities. Not quite.

“He stole the forbidden ritual, right?” Strange presses; wary, now, but clearly determined to have his answer. When he receives it from Karl in a one word-affirmative, his immediate reply is _another_ question: “What did the ritual do?”

Long-since gone cold despite the exertion, Karl pauses their circling by stopping near the rack with the staves. Sitting amongst the plain ones is a half-staff of seemingly unremarkable make. “No more questions, Strange,” he decides as he strides back toward the man. Strange’s brow furrows and he eyes the half-staff with such distrust and unease, Karl is relieved and rather proud of him.

“What’s that?” Strange asks, and Karl’s smile widens in a way even he recognizes as unnerving.

“_That’s_ . . . a question.” Karl points the half-staff at Strange, who rolls his eyes and huffs. Karl’s smile widens more and he approaches Strange slowly. “_This_ is a relic. Some magic is too powerful to sustain, so we imbue objects with them. Allowing them to take the strain we cannot.” When Strange nods once, showing that he’s following along, so far, Karl goes on. “_This_ relic is the Staff of the Living Tribunal.”

Karl activates the Staff and cracks it at Strange’s feet like a whip made of pure energy, causing the man to hurriedly jump back. But, having struck, the Staff deactivates, leaving Karl holding a seemingly plain half-staff, once more. He points it up and away from Strange and the man relaxes—thought not by much. Karl nods his approval.

“There are many relics,” he tells a wide-eyed Strange, his tone gone mild and his movements predictable. For the moment. “The Wand of Watoomb. The Vaulting Boots of Valtorr.”

Strange snorts when Karl nudges his left Boot with his right. The former surgeon clearly doesn’t take the import of their name, or simply dismisses it, as he does so many things which have yet to put him at a direct advantage or disadvantage.

“Those names . . . really just roll off the tongue,” he notes with expected irreverence, and Karl doesn’t hide his amusement or stifle his laugh. He’d stopped doing so weeks ago, because denying them is both obvious and more encouraging to Strange than simply letting them happen and pass from notice and memory. “When do I get _my_ relic?”

Karl lets his smile widen to the point of near-menace and starts circling Strange again, who follows suit—also again—but this time with less rote shadowing and more actual preparation and calculation. His gaze runs up and down Karl repeatedly, lingering at places that Karl knows are perceived weak spots and places he knows certainly are _not_. He can’t repress the shiver that shakes him or look away when Strange’s eyes meet his own, challenging and smug.

His back goes up, though he hides it flawlessly. “You’ll get your relic when you’re ready.” _If you’re _ever_ ready_ is also heavily implied. Strange’s smirk fades into a haughty near-scowl.

“I think I’m ready.”

_Of course, you do_. “You’re ready when the _relic_ decides you’re ready. For now—” feeling smug, himself, Karl gives Strange a once-over and lets the man notice him doing so. Once again, when their gazes meet, they don’t break for what feels like far too long and not long enough. Finally, Karl clears his throat and lets his expression settle into the serene half-smile he’d first offered Strange in an alley in Kathmandu. “For now . . . conjure a weapon.”

“Uh, alright. . . .” Strange blinks and shakes himself momentarily, as if surfacing from a dream, then does as he’s bidden. His trembling-graceful hands and sling-ring help him focus and shape the mystic power he’s drawn, into a flexible sort of rope. At least, it seems to start out that way, but Karl doesn’t give it a chance to become anything more, leveling the Staff at Strange, yelling at the top of his lungs to startle and discombobulate . . . even beyond what the sudden attack will have done.

It works. Strange jumps and immediately uses the item he’s conjured to defend himself under Karl’s relentless assault.

“Fight!” Karl keeps yelling as he bears down on Strange, driving him back and back, but not yet scoring a hit. There _is_ martial instinct there, it seems, if little in the way of skill or ease. Karl redoubles his efforts. “Fight, like your life depends upon it!”

With that, he uses the Staff to snag and wrest the mystic rope out of Strange’s hands. It disappears as it goes flying over Karl’s shoulder. Karl doesn’t watch it go, but Strange does, his expression more hurt and lost, than anything. Angered by the fact that _that look_—the one from Kathmandu and the alley and the moments after the Ancient One had refused to teach him—still affects the heart of him, Karl uses the Boots to _leap_. He glides above around Strange in an airborne lope, kicking out at the man just as he starts turning to follow Karl with a startled gape.

They both hit the ground: Strange with a grunt and jolt of most of his prone body, and Karl on the flats of his Boots.

“Because one day,” he pants at Strange—breathless, once again, for no reason—as he stalks toward the still prone and vulnerable man. Strange has levered himself up on one bony elbow and is watching Karl with wide, unreadable eyes. Karl doesn’t allow himself a flinch or even a wince, since Strange would learn nothing from either. “One day . . . it may.”

Now within touching distance, he leans down and offers his hand. Strange’s entire face tenses into wary-weary planes and lines, but after a few drawn-out moments, he reaches out with his shaking right hand. Karl takes it, meaning to simply haul the man to his feet, but a quick, near-visible spark of energy—not quite mystical but certainly not mere static electricity—jumps between their hands so fast, Karl can’t tell from whom it originated.

He tells himself it doesn’t matter and pulls Strange to his feet, putting more pressure on the man’s wrists than his fragile hands. Strange still grimaces in pain and _Karl_ still feels that unwanted dull agony in his chest that he always feels when Strange’s hands pain him—no matter the reason.

Once on his feet, Strange doesn’t remove his hand and the rest of him from out of immediate striking range. Instead, he moves closer into Karl’s personal space—into Karl’s _airspace_, so that all Karl can smell is Strange’s incense-apples-books scent . . . with the return of blood and brimstone . . . carnality and rue.

All Karl can see is Strange’s outlandish, unexpectedly beautiful face, and striking, flames-and-sky eyes.

“Got it,” Strange says, his low rumble barely audible, even as his hand tightens around Karl’s wrist in an entirely breakable hold. “Always fight like my life depends on it, because it just might. Fight with everything I’ve got to keep what I have . . . and to get what I _want_.” He doesn’t smirk or even smile, but he does lean in even closer. Not kissing close, but certainly kissing close-_adjacent_. “Lesson learned, Master Mordo. But I _do_ have one last question.”

Before Karl can even conjure a response, let alone express it, the world goes topsy-turvy insane, upside-down and wildly swinging, before he’s impacting that world with a winded-pained grunt, much like Strange had a minute ago.

It’s only when he’s been lying flat on his back for most of another stunned, reeling minute—staring up into a sky whose vividness has been long-since surpassed for him . . . since the afternoon he’d saved a lost indigent from an untimely death in an alley—that Strange hoves into Karl’s view. He looks towering and powerful and stern and . . . _stirring_.

As in, _Karl is stirring_ in ways he chooses not to examine, at the sight of Stephen Strange standing above him.

“About that last question, Master Mordo. If you’ll kindly indulge me. . . .” Strange puffs out forcefully, arms crossed over his chest.

Karl huffs a tired laugh, too stunned and dazed from being felled by his own tables-turning move—one he hadn’t imagined Strange’d been paying attention to in sparring sessions, let alone that he’d acquired the skill to replicate and pull off so effectively—to pick up the thread of the lesson or his mantle of _Master Mordo_.

In this moment, he is merely himself—merely _Karl_ . . . and barely _that_, with the way reality continues to wobble and spin.

“Ask, then, if you’re so desperate for edification,” he invites, his lips twisting in a smirk that’s entirely self-castigating.

Strange moves a little closer, to Karl’s side, and kneels, leaning down even further to whisper mere inches from Karl’s face:

“So, now that _all that’s_ outta the way . . . can we fuck, now—or soon-ish? Or do I have to wait until I’ve got my blue robes and have put, like, two or three venerable masters’ worth of mentorship between you and I?”

Karl at last meets Strange’s gaze, vaguely horrified and yet . . . amused. Thrilled, even.

Thrilled . . . even though he closes his eyes and turns his face away once more. “Don’t start this again, Strange. Just leave it be.”

“_You’re_ the one who’s been raising wood since before we started sparring, from what I can tell. You’re the one pitching a tent in public. Although. . . .” Strange sighs. “You’re not the _only_ one. You’ve _gotta_ be as sick of this dance as I am, Karl. Sure, it’s fun and kinda crazy-hot—I mean, I fantasize about our banter during my showers, so . . . I’m definitely down for that if it’s leading somewhere. But it’s . . . the flirting and _two steps forward, eight steps back_-bullshit isn’t meant to be an end! Only the means to it. And I _know_ that I, for one, don’t want _our ending_ to be two sorcerers with blue balls and a bad case of regrets, both of which’ll probably never go away.”

“Ah.” Karl chuckles after taking most of a minute to digest that. Tears leak out of his squinched-shut eyes and roll down his face to muddy the dust. “Is _that_ what you know, Strange?”

“Yes.” Unhesitating, of course. Strange isn’t _built_ for hesitation or doubt or self-doubt. Even now. “Not knowing what I want has _never_ been my problem. Neither has _not getting_ what I want.”

Karl opens his eyes and glances up at Strange’s intent, serious face, listening for the sure-to-be-loud crash of his own entire, carefully constructed and maintained life as it comes toppling down around him. Perhaps around them all. “Then, what _has_ been your problem, Strange?”

Strange shrugs, his gaze skittering away and darting everywhere before slinking back to Karl.

“Holding on,” he says, the right corner of his mouth ticking as he shrugs again. “Keeping the things that matter—that I value and consider precious.” Again, his gaze goes everywhere, but when it comes back to Karl, it’s steady and strangely unshielded. “I lose things I care about and need. Places, people, situations . . . homes, friends, lovers. And _this shit_ hasn’t made it any easier to hold on, lemme tell ya.”

Strange holds up his shaking and scarred, graceful and beautiful hands. _The hands of a sorcerer_, now, no matter what they’d previously been in Strange’s old life.

Once he stops staring at his hands with a mix of regret and acceptance—resignation—Strange looks back at Karl and smiles, just a bit. “I know what I want, but I’m not good at holding on when I get it. And you . . . _you_ have no idea what you need, and you _push away_ what you want. Seems like we’re a couple of shmucks with complimentary problems. And possibly a shared solution.”

“You don’t know anything about me, Strange,” Karl says, laughing again as he sits up. His progress is halted when he realizes that Strange won’t be moving out of the way of that. He stops, partly upright and just beyond kissing distance, and holds Strange’s gaze. “Move.”

“No.”

Karl shakes his head again. “You really and truly know _nothing_ of me, Strange, so let me inform you: Attempting to corner me is . . . inadvisable.”

“Look, I _don’t_ know you, Karl—at least, not well,” Strange admits and agrees in a nervous rush. “But I . . . feel like I do—or could. And I _want_ to. I wanna know _everything_.”

Karl snorts again. “Of course, you do.”

“I also wanna kiss you breathless.” Now, Strange laughs, quiet and overwhelmed. “I have since you saved my ass in that alley.”

Karl flushes and looks down, trying to calm his breathing. “You shouldn’t.”

“_Foregone_ conclusions are my _favorite_ conclusions. They’re the easiest kind to fulfill.” Strange chuckles when Karl smirks, but then his face goes solemn and even scared when Karl sneaks a glance at him. “Can I. . . ?” He swallows audibly, moving just a micron closer, Karl’s recent warning no doubt still resounding in his psyche. “May I kiss you, Karl?”

Karl sighs, even though he wants to run away, laughing. Or weeping. _Or . . . perhaps_ . . . simply say _yes_, here and now, and let the future take care of itself, for once. “Not here, no, you may not.”

Strange obviously represses a grin. “Then, may I kiss you at _some other location_? Ah . . . in your room, perhaps? Say, in the vicinity of a flat and comfortable surface and with your door very much closed?”

His face gone red and abominably hot again, Karl makes a quietly frustrated sound that hurts his throat. “I . . . this is _not_ who I am—not who I’ve worked so hard to be, Strange,” he murmurs urgently—tries to explain, and to forestall this imminent _conclusion_ which they both want, but only one of them is wise enough to realize they shouldn’t _get_.

But this wisdom, of course, is in one of Stephen Strange’s surprising, seemingly random blind-spots.

“Not who you are, but . . . maybe it’s who you _need to be_.” Strange smiles again, small and encouraging. “Things change, Master Mordo. _Wants and needs_ change, and we can change with them, if we let ourselves.”

And with that, Strange leans back and offers his hand. The scars on it form a chaotic, oddly eye-pleasing almost-_mehndi_ that draws Karl’s eye and heart in a way he doubts he’ll ever be able to explain. . . .

_Wants and needs change, and we can change with them_, Strange has learned and now knows. But Karl had long ago learned this. Before Strange’s parents had been born, Karl had changed and become and grown through sets of wants and needs that’d each been only slightly less awful than the ones that’d come just prior.

His life, since those days, has been about acknowledging wants and even needs, then only taking bare minimums . . . and doing without, beyond that.

And thus, _Baron Mordo_ had learned to be _Karl Mordo_, and put his old ways behind him. With the help of the Ancient One, Karl has been living above _that_ demon for decades, and determinedly not looking down.

But now . . . Karl can’t tell if his dazzled-confused focus—locked, as it is and has been, on _Strange_—is still aimed at the lofty and empyrean . . . or if he’s truly about to wallow in his own darkest, deepest nadir. . . .

A chthonic midnight of which even the Baron had been entirely unsuspecting.

Staring into Stephen Strange’s flames-and-sky eyes, and surrounded by his scent, both sacred and earthy, Karl at last knows only that he’s very weary of wanting and never having—never _getting_, not even briefly.

He, too, knows nothing of keeping what one holds and cares for. Not really. The only thing he’s ever both kept and cared for is Kamar-Taj.

Strange is nothing so high-minded and sacrosanct as Kamar-Taj and what it represents, but . . . Karl supposes he _can_ hold Strange, all the same. In _at least one sense_ in which he’ll never hold Kamar-Taj . . . and perhaps a few others, too.

_Perhaps_ . . . even _keep him_. . . .

Finally, laughing silently at himself, but also tired of brooding and overthinking, Karl stops staring and _wanting_—stops _longing_. He reaches out for Strange’s hand and _takes_.

* * *

**_TBC, in the second fic of the _Strange Days_ series: “Strange Ways.”_**

**Author's Note:**

> **End notes:  
**  
  
  
**Thanks:**  
  
To anyone giving this a read (and hopefully a comment and/or kudo :-).  
  
  
  
**Resources & References for this fic:**  
  
[Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki](https://marvelcinematicuniverse.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_Cinematic_Universe_Wiki)  
  
[Marvel Wiki](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel_Database)  
  
[Genius.com](https://genius.com/) for lyrical inspiration  
  
  
  
**Powered by:**  
  
beetle’s No Doubt-Flavored Strordo Mix: “[New](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDZSuw00OZ3ZvJXyewCsl9ElTUwBD1MYy)” [16 songs]:  
  
Trapped in a Box  
Excuse Me Mr.  
Spiderwebs  
Bathwater  
Hella Good  
Tragic Kingdom  
Happy Now?  
Ex-Girlfriend  
Sunday Morning  
Running  
Don’t Speak  
It’s My Life  
Simple Kind of Life  
New  
Underneath it All  
New  
  
  
  
  
[TUMBLES with the bug](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com)! And [PILLOWFORTS with the bug, too](https://www.pillowfort.io/beetle-comma-the)!


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